Summati
THE
n Weekly USPS Publication Number 16300
T h is C om mu n i t y N ewsp a p er is a pu bl ica t ion of E sca m bia / S a n ta Rosa B a r Assoc ia t ion
Section A, Page 1
Vol. 17, No. 19
Visit The Summation Weekly Online: www.summationweekly.com
May 17, 2017
1 Section, 12 Pages
Working to End Homelessness written by Hana Frenette
If you pass through the intersection of 9th Avenue and Cervantes Street, you’ll likely see a person standing on each of the four corners, holding a sign, asking for help. Drive along Davis Highway, Palafox Street or Bayou Boulevard and you’ll see the same thing. People standing near stoplights, interstate ramps and parking lots, all with handwritten, cardboard signs. While the signs vary in their request—some ask for things like food, spare change, or even a beer—they send a unified message: there are hundreds of homeless, hungry, and disabled people attempting to survive in our community each day and they’re all in need of assistance.
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hat’s where the EscaRosa Coalition on the Homeless(ECOH) comes in. They’re one out of a handful of local organizations doing everything they can to help people get off the streets. They’re slogan is simply, “Working to eliminate homelessness.” EscaRosa Coalition on the Homeless is a collection of agencies and individuals who are working together to prevent and eliminate homelessness in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties. Currently, ECOH operates as the umbrella organization that regulates distribution of federal and state funding to providers that are working to fight homelessness in both Escambia and Santa Rosa counties. ECOH also hosts a monthly forum for service providers to share concerns and discuss new services. The ECOH also helps oversee the Continuum of Care in Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties. The “continuum of care” model creates a framework for a comprehensive array of shelter and support services to address varying needs of the persons who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. One of the biggest projects ECOH embarks on annually is their Point in Time (PIT) Survey count. The survey helps ECOH gauge how many homeless people are in Santa Rosa and Escambia Counties each year. ECOH sends volunteers out around the two counties for several weeks and attempts to document each homeless person and their situation through a short survey, which is then entered into their software system. ECOH notes the age, the gender, the reason for homelessness, the length of homelessness and any ailments or issues the person has. Serene Keiek, Marketing Director with ECOH, said the PIT count not only gives the organizations and the counties an idea of the number of people on the streets during a given year, but helps them to gauge the number of people they are able to help, see who they’ve helped in the past, and determine what services are needed most. “We try to do a coordinated assessment of people who are coming into our system; that way we can see if we’ve helped them before and if that assistance we provided was able to keep them off the streets or not,” Keiek said. ECOH’s PIT count for 2016 revealed 798 homeless individuals, down from more than 1,000 in 2015’s count. Of those 798 individuals, 49 percent were living with a disabling condition, 14 percent were veterans, and 16 percent had one or more children with them. ECOH will release their current 2017 PIT count in the first part of April, and Keiek said she expected the numbers to go down again. Keiek said they don’t send their
volunteers into the woods or any other dangerous place in order to obtain PIT numbers, but they do take into account that there are more homeless people than they are able to see and count. The numbers give a fairly accurate idea of the amount of homeless individuals who are seen throughout the city, but not the individuals staying in secluded camps or wooded areas. “We do have a few camps— outreach camps, and some of our volunteers felt comfortable going in, plus the people in the camps already knew we were doing the count,” Keiek said. “But we know there are people living in the community who are homeless and simply don’t want to be found or counted by our survey.”
Matching the needs to the people
Situations and circumstances vary drastically for each person living on the street, but Keiek noted a large percentage of homeless people aren’t on drugs or substance abusers, but simply cannot live in a home with responsibilities, like paying bills or cooking for themselves, due to their mental instabilities. ECOH’s “Continuum of Care” is put in place to help get the right type of assistance to the right person, at the right time. This assistance might include help with housing, housing placement, transportation, substance abuse counseling, meal assistance and medical treatment. Executive Director of ECOH, John Johnson, believes the community is at a crossroads with the way it perceives homelessness and the way it chooses to help those in need. A proposed ordinance prohibiting panhandling will be reviewed in early April by Pensacola City Council, and has sparked heated debates between homeless activists and downtown business owners. The panhandling ordinance was proposed by Council President Brian Spencer and Mayor Ashton Hayward, and is supported by the Downtown Improvement Board. If passed, the ordinance would fine panhandlers located in the “Downtown Visitors District” $50 for their first offense, $100 for the second, continuing up to a $400 maximum fine. “I think this is the perfect time for this community to do things we’ve never done before,” Johnson said. “We’ve got advocates facing off with government over this ordinance, but then we have this huge underlying issue to address— are the people getting the help they need? And are those that are asking for help really in need?” Johnson noted ECOH does not encourage volunteers or community members to give cash assistance. “If you’d like to help, we suggest giving a meal, or giving to a provider,” he said. “We feel cash assistance prolongs them to stay on the street.”
ECOH launched a campaign called “A Better Way to Give” as a way to encourage a cycle of care, instead of a temporary fix that comes with handing someone a dollar on the street. Johnson also noted the growth spurt in food pantries that provide hot meals, sack lunches or weekly breakfasts for homeless individuals. While these organizations provide a comforting meal, Johnson is concerned that hot food isn’t enough to help or change the real problem. “We used to have three to four pantries, and now we have over 20 pantries throughout Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties—but what have we done to actually create a situation of care for someone who wants to move out of homelessness?” Shelters, food pantries, counseling services, drug abuse clinics, agencies and volunteers are all attempting to offer some relief and guidance to the homeless community but Johnson said the groups aren’t always working in tandem with one another, and that the current goal is to coordinate communication and collaborate with one another to ensure the best outcome possible. “Successful collaboration across agencies is crucial to making a meaningful dent in the homeless population in the area,” Johnson said. In April, as a step in the collaboration process, Johnson and the team at ECOH will place 12 men and women into what he calls “low barrier,” housing-first homes, in collaboration with local landlords. “Low barrier” refers to the low requirements needed to qualify for the program, and housing-first is a model used nationally that suggests by giving people shelter first, they are then able to tackle their other problems and ailments, since they are no longer in “survival mode.” No drug or alcohol screening was required of the individuals, although substance abuse and mental health counseling services will be provided each week by Lakeview Center and Escambia County Community Clinic. The process took two years of planning, grant writing, searching for landlords who were willing to partner with ECOH, and months of screening people for the housing opportunity. The people chosen for the grant housing are chronically homeless, have a physical ailment or impediment, and are willing to make a change to end their homelessness. Each person will have their own room in an apartment and will have their rent paid for three months. After three months, they will have to pay their own rent, which could be as little as $300 a month if they choose to stay in the designated apartment.
homelessness in Escambia and santa rosa counties by the numbers
798
Total homeless people counted in 2016 in Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties.
49% reported living with a disabling condition
59% have been homeless for 1 year or longer
547 Men
521 Women
16% children 8.5% families
14% Veterans Johnson noted that these chronically homeless individuals have been shown to cost communities more money when they are on the streets then when they are placed into very low income housing situations. “These people are ending up in emergency rooms regularly, and are in and out of psychiatric care facilities, with no means to pay,” he said. “This provides a safer, better, more cost effective option for everyone involved.”
Keeping people off the streets
According to ECOH Housing Director Diane Moore, one of the main challenges ECOH faces in this community is the small availability of low income housing for moderate-income individuals, or people on disability.
“Even if someone is on disability or social security income, they may only receive $700 a month, and finding something they can afford, along with medical bills is very difficult— there is often a waiting list for 2-3 years on the public housing here,” Moore said. “We provide help with managing housing and possibly funding, and try to help them find someplace to live, while they wait for a more permanent solution.” In addition to simply finding a safe, clean, semi-permanent place to sleep at night, many of these people who have been homeless for years have to relearn how to live in a home. Many of these newly housed men and women haven’t thought about taking out the garbage, cooking an egg on the stove, making their bed, remembering their bills, or locking their doors at night for years. They’re remembering things slowly, day by day, and learning to manage a home again. Johnson noted the overall importance of utilizing counseling services and outside agencies after a home has been established in order to keep people in line to stay off the streets. Without proper guidance or resources, they could fall into the same habits that potentially landed them on the streets originally. “We want to engage the community to make a change and we can’t do it alone,” Keiek said. “I think this is how we’re going to do it— by working with other entities and programs in town.” ECOH is making leaps and bounds in transforming the lives of people who are living without a home in Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties, but they aren’t ready to stop there. “This is about transforming our whole community—stop enabling homelessness, and work together as a whole to help those who need it,” Johnson said. Johnson envisions a future for the community that involves a better understanding of what ECOH is trying to do. If someone is homeless and encounters a person on the street or a police officer, they will be guided in the right direction based on the services they need. “It’s all about knowing where to send someone, the gateway into any homeless service, the one-stop place where people will go for help,” he said. “By bridging relations with business communities, government agencies, and partner organizations, we can spread the word about all the ways to give and help, so people don’t feel like giving a dollar is the only way to do something. We engage, we don’t enable. And we engage with a goal at hand—to get people off the streets.” To learn more about ECOH, their partner organizations and their outreach plan, visit ecoh.org.